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THE HYPHEN 
IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

By George Seibel 



Address Delivered on German Day, 
August 31, 1 9 1 6, at Johnstown, Pa. 



THIRTY-FIRST EDITION 

This pamphlet can be secured In any quantity at 10 cents a copy, 
15 for one dollar, or five dollars a hundred, from 



THE LESSING COMPANY 

P. 0. Box 383 

PITTSBURGH, PA. 



t^ I Si- 



GERMANY AND AMERICA 

By George Seibel 

In German forests Liberty was born — 

There Armin overthrew the boas.t of Rome; 

There Truth and Beauty found another home, 
When from the holy soil of Hellas torn; 
There was the badge of Courage humbly worn, 

There Faith hath reared aloft her proudest dome; 

While Song rose radiant from her fountains' foam, 
Hypocrisy fell blasted by her scorn. 

America, thou art the heir of all 

The toil and dream, the glory and the song! 

Her sons have died for thee in many wars — 
And canst thou like a stranger see her fall, 
Or lend a hand in that eternal wrong 

To blot this blazing splendor from the stars? 



DEUTSCHLAND UND AMERIKA 
((Translation by Prof. Julius Stern in Strassburger Post) 

Freihelt ward einst in deutschem Fo.st geboren; 
Dort stuerzte Hermanns Arm Ronis Uebermut. 
Wahrheit fand dort und Schoenheit sich're Hut, 
Da Hellas' heil'gem Boden sle verloren. 
Das Ehrenkreuz des Ruhms glaenzt dort bescheiden, 
Dort ragt der Treue Dom; der Toene Kunst 
Stieg strahlend dort aus Quellenschimmerdunst. 
Der deutsche Spott kann keinen Heuchler leiden. 

Amerika. du bist die Erbln all 

Des Strebens, Traeumens, Ruhmes und der Toene; 
Fuer dich starb kaempfend mancher seiner Soehne — 
Und kannst du kalt mit ansehn seinen Fall, 
Kannst ew'gem Unrecht gar die Hand du leihen, 
:Zu loeschen diese Leuchte aus der Sterne Reihen? 






THE HYPHEN 
IN AMERICAN HISTORY 



By GEORGE SEIBEL 

(Reprinted from the "New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung" of September 4, 1916.) 



jQURING the past few years a new disease has made its 
>•■ appearance in the United States, a maUgnant malady no one 
had ever before suspected. It originated in something that seems 
to be harmless enough — a mere mark of punctuation. Of course, 
those familiar with the history of medicine have heard of the 
dangerous comma bacillus, discovered by Doctor Koch. He had 
some idea of the perils lurking in the printer's case, yet even he 
couldn't have realized what a dire menace was hid in the seem- 
ingly innocuous hyphen. It remained for a famous Doctor from 
Princeton to discover this, and his horrifying discovery was veri- 
fied by the researches of another wise man — the peerless navigator 
of the River of Doubt, the eminent founder of the Ananias Club, 
the mighty hunter of the Whiskered Bird, the discoverer of the 
Ten Commandments, the modern Diogenes, who is rushing up 
and down our land, searching for an honest man, not with a lan- 
tern but with a looking-glass. 

The hyphen, however, is malignant only in certain combina- 
tions. You may be an Anglo-Saxon, or a British- American, or 
Scotch-Irish, or a score of other things with hyphens, and the 
hyphen will be a mark of distinction and a badge of honor. 
But if you are a German-American — that is, during the past 
few years — the hyphen is as dreadful as the brand of Cain. 
Formerly, when a careless workman smoked a pipe in a powder- 
factory and was blown up, people said it served him right. Nowa- 
days, when hundreds of careless and unskilled workmen all over 



the country, raked up from everywhere to manufacture muni- 
tions, blow up themselves and the factories where they work 
eighteen hours a day, the newspapers at once raise the cry, "Hunt 
the Hyphen!" 

If somebody with a German name, having heard that an 
American nurse in Germany died of blood-poisoning because she 
had no antiseptic rubber gloves, attempts to smuggle some sheet 
rubber into Germany, he is at once haled before a tribunal for 
the violation of American neutrality. He or she is bitterly at- 
tacked in scurrilous articles on the front page of papers circulating 
especially in the circles that year after year swindle the United 
States Government by smuggling silks and furs from Europe, 
though they could well afford to pay the duties. But it makes 
a great deal of difference whether a British- American hyphenate 
smuggles furs and silks into America, or whether a German- 
American hyphenate tries to smuggle rubber into Germany. The 
one is only cheating the American people, but the other is dis- 
obeying the British foreign office. 

It would take a week to tell all the horrors and crimes com- 
mitted by these wicked Hyphens. 

Why, do you know that some even had the audacity to say 
they would not vote for the re-election of President Wilson? 
They did not care, it seems, how bad the London Times might 
feel if King George's American Maharajah should be deposed. 
These wicked Hyphens are utterly devoid of human sympathy. 
Some of them even had the temerity to criticize this same Presi- 
dent Wilson when he declined to attend the unveiling of a monu- 
ment to General Nathanael Greene. Who was General Greene? 
Second in command to George Washington. Who was George 
Washington? He was a hyphenate of 1776. 

Do you know that if you printed extracts today from the 
writings of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, and their 
associates, and attempted to smuggle them into Canada, or Ire- 
land, or India, you would probably be arrested? Why, there 

4 



is even a little pamphlet written by William Jennings Bryan, to 
bring which into India would subject a man to being cast into 
prison. * 

Sometimes I wish that old Johann Peter Zenger could come 
back to us. Zenger, a German hyphenate of the year 1 733, 
was the first apostle and martyr of the American free press. He 
founded the first newspaper in America that tried to tell the truth. 
The truth, then as now, was unpalatable to the English authori- 
ties, so Zenger's paper was ordered to be burned by the hang- 
man, and Zenger was thrown into jail. A trifling inconvenience 
like that did not scare a man like Zenger. He kept on editing 
his paper from his cell, giving instructions to the printers through 
a crack in the door. After years of persecution he established 
in America the principle of the free press, free until it was again 
fettered by chains of gold. 

Remember that it was a German-American hyphenate who 
first secured for America the liberty of the press. The hyphen- 
ates have been first in a great many things, their connection 
with which in our day has almost been forgotten. Above all, 
they have always been first in every fight for liberty, in every 
battle against oppression, in every war for human rights. 

Do you know that the first protest against negro slavery voiced 
on this continent came from Germantown in the year 1 688, and the 
arguments were such that it was impossible to refute them? It 
look nearly 1 50 years for the Puritans of New England to catch 
up with the humane idealism of Franz Daniel Pastorius and his 
comrades, whom the poet Whittier has called: 

"The German-born pilgrims who first dared to brave 
The scorn of the proud in the cause of the slave." 

Do you know that the first rebel against British tyranny on 
this continent was a hyphenate, Jacob Leisler? Just as, two 



• NOTE. — About a year later, men were arrested in New York for circu- 
lating the Declaration of Independence, while an association that Intended to 
print the Sermon on the Mount for distribution was warned by the Depart- 
ment of Justice that this was pro-German. 



centuries later, the first men on this continent to preach the new 
economic gospel of Socialism were hyphenated Germans. 

Do you know that it was a German newspaper, the Staats- 
bote, which first told the people of the Colonies that the Declara- 
tion of Independence had been adopted? 

Do you know that the first Bible printed in America was 
printed by the hyphenated Christoph Saur in 1 743, forty years 
before any other Bible was printed in America? 

Do you know that fully two hundred years earlier a German 
hj^henate, Johann Cromberger, had established the first printing- 
office in the new world, in the City of Mexico? 

Do you know that the first book on education produced in 
America was written by Christoph Dock in 1 754, and that the 
first Kindergarten was brought over in 1826 by Friedrich Rapp? 

Do you know that the first American astronomer was David 
Rittenhouse of German town? Thomas Jefferson said of him: 
"He has not indeed made a new world, but he has approached 
nearer its Maker than any man who has lived from the creation 
to this day." 

Do you know that the first American Encyclopedia was com- 
piled by Francis Lieber in 1828? 

Today our greatest Sanscrit scholar is Maurice Bloomfield, 
our foremost Semitic master is Paul Haupt, our most eminent 
authority on Chinese is Friedrich Hirth, our best-known Oriental 
archaeologist is Hermann V. Hilprecht. 

The things of the mind and the spirit were always their first 
concern, but the German Pilgrims have been no less conspicuous 
as pioneers in the fields of industry and commerce. 

Do you know that William Rittenhaus in 1 690 erected the 
first paper-mill in America? 

Do you know that Thomas Ruetter in 1716 founded the 
first iron-works in Pennsylvania? 

C 



Do you know that another German, Kaspar Wuester, m 
1738, founded the first glass-factory in America? 

Do you know that a hyphenated Pennsylvania Dutchman,. 
Thomas Leiper, in 1806, laid the tracks of the first railroad ire 
America ? 

Do you know that a German built the first steamboat that 
plowed our western waters, and another German as her captain 
made the first trip from Pittsburgh to New Orleans? 

Do you know that the first suspension bridge was flung, a 
hyphen of steel, across an American river by the hyphenated Jo- 
hann August Roebling, as if he wished to impress upon the world 
the fact that the hyphen unites, it does not separate? 

Do you know that a hyphenated German-American is "the 
foremost electrical engineer of the United States, and therefore 
of the world"? I am quoting the words of the President of 
Harvard University in conferring a degree upon Karl P. Stein- 
metz. 

How many of our giant enterprises were founded by these 
despised hyphenates! I shall name only four. The great United 
States Steel Corporation sprang from the furnaces of Andreas and 
Anton Kloman, started about 1850; the family of the man who 
may be regarded as the father of the modern Department Store, 
John Wanamaker, was originally known as Wannemacher; the 
ancestors of the founder of the Standard Oil business were called 
Roggenfelder ; and all over the world, in 57 languages, you will 
see the praise of the 57 varieties associated with the hyphenated 
name of Heinz. 

Even so in the contiguous realms of beauty and of truth, in 
the radiant creations of art and the stupendous achievements of 
science, the Germans in America have done their share and need 
not be ashamed. 

7 



Do you know that the Capitol at Washington, the most ma- 
jestic structure in the new world, is the work of a German hy- 
phenate? Do you know that the most beautiful building in the 
new world, the Library of Congress, is also the work of two 
hyphenated Germans? 

Do you know that the two largest telescopes and the two 
most important observatories in the United States were the gift 
of two hyphenates. Lick and Yerkes? A German- American, 
Heinrich Schliemann, dug up the buried grandeur of Greece and 
raised the mighty men of Homer from the world of shades. 

Do you know that Christoph Witt in Germantown built our 
first church-organ? Do you know that Johann Behrent, in 
1775, built the first American piano? Do you know that you 
can't buy an unhyphenated piano worth playing? 

The Germans have given us the singing society and the sym- 
phony orchestra, two great agencies to uplift and refine the human 
family. Remember Damrosch — remember Thomas! But in 
more utilitarian fields of humanitarian endeavor we also owe to 
them some of our most admirable institutions. The first female 
seminary was established by the hyphenated Moravians. It was 
a German Barbarian, Henry Bergh, who founded the societies 
for the prevention of cruelty to animals and children. It was 
a German Hun, Arthur von Briesen, who started the first Legal 
Aid Society, the precursor of hundreds, in the new world and 
the old, that helped to bring justice within reach of the poor. 

But there is another field in which the Germans of America 
have not been so prominent — the field of politics. They have a 
constitutional incapacity which they will have to overcome, for 
the sake of democracy. Politics in a democracy is the art of 
asking for something and getting your neighbors to think they are 
making you take it. The average German prefers to earn what 
he gets and to owe no man anything, and this has kept him away 
from the political grab-bag. So far as he has gone into politics, 

8 



he has always been the ideahst, the statesman of pure purpose 
and lofty courage and stalwart unselfishness. 

Do you know that the original Lincoln man was Gustav 
Koerner, a bold bad hyphenate — ^what our knownothings would 
call a "professional German"? Do you know that Christian 
Roselius, a hyphenate of Louisiana, was one man who had the 
patriotic courage to refuse to sign the Confederate constitution? 

Do you know that the first treasurer of the United States 
was a hyphenated German- American, Hillegas? He served for 
fourteen years, and helped pull Uncle Sam out of many a hole. 
Look at his picture on the next ten-dollar bill you hand over to 
feed the poor victims of a wicked war. 

Do you know that the first speaker of the American Con- 
gress was a hjT)henated German- American, Muehlenberg? And 
in our generation the father of Civil Service Reform was that 
great champion of liberty in two worlds, the dauntless fighter of 
1848 and 1861, the sage and statesman, Carl Schurz. 

If they have not held so many of the offices, the German- 
Americans have fought more of the battles of America. In 
every great conflict they have poured their blood, blood from the 
Rhine and the Oder, from the Elbe and the Danube, upon the 
altar of patriotic devotion. 

The War of American Independence was largely fought by 
German soldiers. When Washington called for volunteers, the 
first to arrive were German sharpshooters from Berks County. 
Squads of German-American riflemen tramped six hundred miles 
from Virginia to Massachusetts to help throw the British out of 
the American colonies. It seems they did not succeed in throw- 
ing all of them out, and a few more squads should finish the job. 

When a conspiracy against Washington's life was discovered, 
it became necessary to provide him with a bodyguard that could 
be trusted absolutely. Where was such a bodyguard to be 

9 



found? Where but among the Germans of Berks and Lancas- 
ter counties, Pennsylvania? Their captain was Major Bartho- 
lomaeus von Heer, a Prussian. If any one had come to George 
Washington, the friend of Heer and Steuben, and told him it 
was necessary to crush the Prussians, George Washington would 
have had that Tory scoundrel locked in the guard-house. 

It was not only the hundred and fifty stalwart men of Wash- 
ington's bodyguard that showed how the Germans stood during 
the War of the Revolution. When Congress ordered Pennsyl- 
vania to furnish six companies, our hyphenated state furnished 
nine, four of them entirely German. A German manufacturer 
furnished most of the cannon and rifles for Washington's army, 
and when the soldiers were starving nine Germans donated 
$ 1 00,000 to buy provisions. When Congress was at the point 
of refusing more money for the purchase of arms, one man arose 
and said: "I am only a poor ginger-bread baker, but write my 
name down for two hundred pounds." His name was Christoph 
Ludwig, and he was a hyphenate. I have often wondered 
whether he was related to the heroine Molly Pitcher, who was 
also a hyphenated American. Molly's maiden name was Marie 
Ludwig, lest we forget! 

German bakers played a considerable role at that time. Frau 
Margareta Greider for several months provided the American 
soldiers with bread, refusing to accept payment, and in addition 
she subscribed 1 500 guineas for the American cause. 

To tell of Johann von Kalb, who died at Camden, would 
require an epic. His death was no less heroic than that of 
Nathan Hale. "This is nothing," were his last words; "I am 
dying the death I have longed for. I am dying for a country 
fighting for justice and liberty." Yet he was only a Barbarian, 
only a Hun, like Baron von Steuben, who came from the armies 
of Frederick the Great to drill the armies of Washington. Steu- 
ben found at Valley Forge an untrained mob, ready to disband 

10 



in desperation. Some officers were in gowns made of bedspreads. 
It took $400 to buy a pair of boots. Steuben changed all this. 
From the time he came upon the scene, there was an American 
army. At Yorktown the last British army on American soil 
surrendered to this Prussian. So the Germans drove the British 
from America. Alas, they have come back and taken Wash- 
ington! Ah, would that Muehlenberg and Herkimer, Kalb and 
Steuben could come back today! 

No names in American history shine more radiantly than 

those of Muehlenberg and Herkimer. See Muehlenberg in his 

pulpit, preaching his last sermon! "There is a time for praying. 

But there is also a time for fighting. That time has now come!" 

He throws off his clerical cassock and beneath it is the uniform 

of Washington's Continentals. Several hundred members of his 

congregation enlisted in his regiment. Thomas Buchanan Read 

immortalized Muehlenberg in the lines: 

"Then from his patriot tongue of flame 
The startling words of freedom came. 
And grasping in his nervous hand 
Th' imaginary battle-brand, 
In face of death he dared to fling 
Defiance to a tyrant king." 

That other hero, Herkimer, paid with his life for the victory 
of Oriskany, which sealed the fate of Burgoyne's army. Smok- 
ing his pipe and reading the 38th Psalm, his spirit passed into 
the realm of shadows, to walk beside Leonidas and Winkelried, 
to sit with Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, and all the daunt- 
less dead who died that Liberty might live! 

Do you know that Armistead, who defended Fort McHenry 

against the British, was a hyphenated Hessian? But for him 

it would have been sad mockery to ask with Francis Scott Key, 

"Oh, say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?" 

During the Civil War, also, the despised and maligned hy- 
phenates played a promment part in the preservation of the Union. 

11 



As compared with other nationalities, the Germans furnished fifty 
per cent more than their quota of men to the armies of the North. 
One German family, the Pennypackers, furnished 88 men, from 
common soldiers to a major-general. The first volunteers to 
enlist were the German Turners of Washington. Three days 
after Lincoln's call, twelve hundred Germans in Cincinnati were 
ready to march. That was real preparedness! Today pre- 
paredness consists in being ready to sell ammunition to the gov- 
ernment at a fat profit. 

No less than fifty-two Germans rose to the rank of General 
in the Union armies. Their names are not as familiar as some 
others, because they did not think that their service entitled them 
to be kept on the public payroll the remainder of their lives. 
But there are no more distinguished names than those on this 
roster : 



Gen. Carl Schurz Gen. 

Gen. Franz Sigel Gen. 

Gen. Adolph von Steinwehr Gen. 

Gen. Ludwig Blenker Gen. 

Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus Gen. 

Gen. Georg von Schack Gen. 

Gen. Konrad Krez Gen. 

Gen. Alban Schoepf Gen. 

Gen. Julius Stahel Gen. 

Gen. J. H. Heintzelmann Gen. 

Gen. G. D. Wagner Gen. 

Gen. Louis Wagner Gen. 

Gen. August V. Kautz Gen. 

Gen. Hugo Wangelin Gen. 

Gen. GalTisha Pennypacker Gen. 

Gen. Friedrich Hecker Gen. 

Gen. Max Weber Gen. 

Gen. August Willich Gen. 

Gen. Friedrich Salomon Gen. 

Gen. Karl E. Salomon Gen. 

Gen. Edward S. Salomon Gen. 

Gen. Isaak Wister Gen. 

Gen. Heinrich von Bohlen Gen. 

Gen. Franz Hassendeubel Gen. 

Gen. Louis Zahm Gen. 



Gottfried Weitzel 
Theodor Schwan 
Adolph Buschbeck 
Wilhelm Heine 
Gustav Kaemmerling 
Ludwig von Blessing 
August Mohr 
Julius Raith 

F. C. Winkler 
Johann A. Koltes 
Hermann Lieb 
Alexander von Schrader 
William C. KuefiEnei 
George W. Mindel 
Felix Salm-Salm 

G. R. Paul 

Karl Leopold Mathies 
Edward S. Meyer 
George A. Custer 
Adolph A. Engelmann 
Joseph Gerhardt 
Hermann Haupt 
J. Wm. Hofmann 
Jacob Am men 
Wm. Starke Rosecrans 



Gen. Alexander von Schimmelpfennig 
Gen. Samuel Peter Heintzelmann 



12 



It reads like the roll-call of an old-time Turnverein! Fifty- 
two names — and there are others! 

If it had not been for the Germans, both Missouri and Mary- 
land would have been lost to the Union. One-third of the Union 
armies was of German blood. One man out of every ten was 
born in Germany. At Bull Run it was Blenker's German brigade 
that saved the Union forces from annihilation and the capital 
from capture. General Robert Lee said, and Mrs. Jeff Davis 
repeated the sentiment: "Take the Dutch out of the Union army, 
and we could lick the Yankees easily." 

Yet this man Wilson in Washington dares to question the 
loyalty of the German- Americans ! Where were the Wilsons 
in the great crisis of the Rebellion? Some were too proud to 
fight. Others were shouldering guns for the Confederacy, shoot- 
ing down Union soldiers with British bullets! Is it any wonder 
that Wilson insists we must furnish ammunition to England? He 
is paying off a family debt. 

Let me tell you that if some Gibbon of the future will have 
to write the Decline and Fall of the United States, there will be 
few German names in his roll-call of infamy. Germans have 
cemented with their sweat and their blood the battlements of 
Liberty's citadel. Aside from one man, who made the name of 
Bethlehem a mockery of peace, they were not Germans who 
sold to our ancient enemy the bombs and bayonets to murder our 
best friend. It was not the Germans in America who stood by 
smiling when Russia immolated the Jews and Japan strangled 
China. It was not the Germans in America that sold their 
birthright for a Carnegie pension or a Rhodes scholarship. 
It was not the Germans in America who betrayed the 
plans of the Irish Republic to Britain and sullied their souls with 
the blood of Dublin's hero band. It was not the Germans in 
America who spat upon the Declaration of Independence and 
cringed before the blood-stained bullies that called Abraham 
Lincoln an ape! 

13 



The German-Americans believe in the hyphen, but they know 
that the hyphen is a mark of union, not of separation. 

Firm as a wall of iron they have ever stood in defense of true 
Americanism. Still as a rock of granite will they stand, amid 
the storm of calumny and defamation, to save our country from 
a new British conquest. Morgan may give John Bull our banks, 
and he may buy our newspapers, but Justice is mightier than 
Gold, and Truth defies the slanderous darts of Malice. We can 
cry with Brutus, that 

"We are armed so strong in honesty 
That your words pass by us as the idle wind, 
Which we respect not!" 

And like Armistead at Fort McHenry, like Kichlein at Long 
Island, like Herkimer at Oriskany, like Quitman at Chapultepec, 
like Osterhaus on Lookout Mountain, like Schurz and Steinwehr 
on Cemetery Ridge, like Custer on the Little Big Horn, like 
Schley at Santiago, like Barbara Frietchie waving her flag before 
the eyes of traitors, the Germans will be on thq firing line in any 
crisis — not watchfully waiting, but striking hard blows for the 
priceless heritage of liberty, the radiant hope of humanity — that 
government of the people, by the people, and for the people may 
not perish from the face of the earth! 



EPILOGUE 

Since the foregoing address was delivered, America has passed 
through another war. On the battlefields of Europe she was ar- 
rayed against her best friend, through the machinations of her 
ancient enemy. Some people said we had to go to war to "make 
the world safe for democracy." Take a look at the map — 
look at Switzerland, oldest democracy of Europe, truest democ- 
racy in the world. If the democracy of Switzerland was not in 
danger, why was ours? If Switzerland did not have to go to 
war, why did we? Other people said we had to go to war be- 
cause American ships were sunk and American citizens drowned. 
Many more Norwegian and Swedish ships were sunk; many more 
of their citizens drowned. Why did not Norway and Sweden go 
to war? The truth is that we were put into the war by propa- 

14 



ganda. You need not take my word for it; read the confession 
of Sir Gilbert Parker, head of the British propagcinda, printed 
in Harper's Magazine in March, 1918: 

"I need hardly say that the scope of our propaganda depart- 
ment in America was very extensive and its activity very wide. 
We furnished a weekly report to the British Cabinet; we kept in 
constant touch with the permanent correspondents of American 
newspapers in England; we arranged interviews for these corres- 
pondents with prominent Englishmen, and we furnished each news- 
paper in America with an English newspaper. We influenced the 
man in the street through moving-picture shows, articles and 
pamphlets; replied to letters of American critics. We advised and 
stimulated many persons to write articles. We used the friendly 
services and assistance of confidential American friends. We es- 
tablished associations for propaganda by personal correspondence 
with influential people in every profession, beginning with Univer- 
sity and College Presidents, professors and scientific men running 
through all ranges of the population. We made use of the Y. M. 
C. A., libraries, clubs and newspapers. We ihad ten thousand 
propagandists in America." 

That is why America went to war. 

In that war, also, German-Americans did their duty. It was 
their duty to warn against the blunder and crime as long as warn- 
ing could do any good. A day or two before the declaration of 
war, I published the following plea: 

A WORD TO AMERICANS 
"What are you going to get out of the proposed war? 
"Charley Makepeace Schwab will get more dividends, and 

his stocks will be worth more money. J. Patriotic Morgan will 

get more commissions, and his Anglo-French war bonds will sell 

better. But what are you going to get? 

"Well, as a starter, you'll get a chance to enlist, and a chance 

to pay more taxes. Your taxes are now too low. The war will 

fix that. 

"Next, you'll have to pay still higher prices for everything. 
The cost of living is now too low. The war will fix that. 

"Thirdly, there'll be a labor shortage, and you'll have a 
chance to work more. You have too much leisure now — too 
many holidays ; you do not work enough overtime. The war will 
fix that. 

"You'll also get a beautiful system of censorship, because to 
hear the truth won't be good for you, and to speak the truth will 
be called treason. 

15 



"You'll have war bonds that will keep your children slaving 
to pay the interest to the children of the Morgans and the 
Schwabs. You'll have a pension-roll that will make the Civil 
War pension list look like 30 cents. Perhaps, if you go to the 
front, you may even get a pair of crutches or a tombstone. 

"These are a few of the blessings you'll get from the war, 
which the Morganized newspapers are clamoring for. William 
T. Stead, the English peace advocate who died on the Titanic, 
said at Carnegie Founder's Day ten years ago that the peace of 
the world would be secure if the editors of twelve big newspa- 
pers were hanged. These men are now telling Congress and the 
President that you want war. Of course, it's a lie, but you'll 
have to write and tell your Congressman so. Write him a post- 
card, and tell him you want Peace." 

Nothing availed, and our country was plunged into the war. 
Every evil foretold in that "Word to Americans" has come upon 
us — and more, conscription, a wave of crime, epidemics of dis- 
ease, unemployment, and other consequences of war — conse- 
quences of every war. Through it all the German- Americans, 
vilified and persecuted, have done their duty. And they are doing 
their duty today — which is to restore sanity to a mad world, fra- 
ternity in a world aflame with hate, justice in a world that has 
forgot the Golden Rule. To this high task let us dedicate our- 
selves with every heartbeat; proud of our past, let us face this 
future with undimmed courage and imperious hope. 



Other Books by George Seibel 

The Wine Bills of Omar Khayyam $ .25 

A Prose Poem Against Intolerance 

Bacon versus Shakespeare - 1.00 

A Fascinating Literary Study 

The Mormon Saints - - - - i.oo 

History and Religious Psychology 

The Fall - - - - vi .40 

A Humorous Romance About Adam and Eve 

THE LESSING COMPANY 

Box 383 PITTSBURGH, PA. 



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